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Saturday, March 23, 2013

Nothing is easy on a boat

I am trying to update the boat but not spend so much money that I have nothing left to go to Mexico with. I bought this bilge pump and it fits perfectly and even pumps the water out and a good rate.

This pump is good for 1100 gpm in a perfect world. Appa is not a perfect world. The bilge pump hose that runs to the back of the boat for the automatic bilge pump is 3/4". The hand pumps are over 1", look to be 1 1/2" diameter. This pump has a 1 1/8" outlet which I had to buy an adapter for. Vetus makes one that is pretty slick. So that job is more or less done. The wiring is waterproof and logical (for me). Just have to hard mount the bilge pump.

My next project is tearing the wiring out at the engine control panel. I'll leave the wiring harness for the engine alone but there is a mess of wires coming into the panel with no discernible reason. I'm tearing that out and running new wiring. Why do people run wires like this?

There just ain't any reason for this! This area is almost open to the elements. Not a single wire is protected from moisture!

The blower motor runs up to this point so it turns on with the ignition switch. Unnecessary IMO. I'll make a switch that has to be flipped at the main control panel. The blower motor have a finite lifespan. It does not need to be on the whole time the engine is running. Going to keep it simple back there. All these connections can corrode and that's not good. The fuel gauge has three separate wires running to it. Power for the light, sending unit and the other I'm not sure. These aren't single wires either. They are duplex wires with one of the wires cut short and taped. Again WTF!?! Just typing about this pisses me off. Grrrr.

Here is a better shot. The grey tubes are the duplex wiring. The big red wires are for the windlass control. I fixed those. The wires in the terminal box are just hanging there, barely.

I got more TeakGuard and will hit the decks once this weather stops being so....Bipolar. Snowed yesterday.

Mexico is looking more and more like it's really going to happen. My step-son Max's father now knows about our plan and is being very open minded about it. He even wants to help with the delivery to California.

Chris Tutmark stopped by the boat and is going to give me a quote on new lifelines and new standing rigging. We'll drop the mast for that. Paint the bottom and change all the through hulls while we are at it. $$$$. Once done though, we will be good for the trip.